All in the Mind (32 page)

‘He has the press trying to hunt him down so they can add to the shame and humiliation.’

‘All his fault.’

‘Perhaps, but he’s my patient and I have a duty to help him.’

‘Well, you have lots of patients and they’re yours not mine and I do not have a duty to have them in my house.’

Sturrock felt pumped up and strangely exhilarated. The Red Bull was taking him to places he did not normally go.

‘Stella, I know it’s not nice for you. I know you like your own ways and you don’t like them to be disturbed. I know it’s inconvenient. But just for once do you think you could follow the creed you seemingly believe in, and show a little fucking humanity?’

She was shocked. He hardly ever swore and when he did, it was not at her.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I think you heard. Look, I’m sorry that Ralph Hall is in our house, but he needs help. Sorry I screwed up with Jack yesterday, but I had things on my mind. I’m sorry too that we don’t have a great marriage but it takes two to make it work and two to make it not work. There are so many things I can say sorry for but in the end
you
have to stop feeling sorry for yourself.’

‘Martin, this is outrageous. You land me with a drunken politician and you say my being angry about it is feeling sorry for myself ?’

‘No, I’m saying that if it wasn’t this, it would be something else
that
you would make me feel I should be saying sorry for. Well, I’m sorry, Stella, but my “sorry” days are over. I’ve had enough of “sorry”. It hasn’t worked and when things don’t work, you have to change tack.’

‘I see.’

‘Good.’

He had about a third of the second can of Red Bull remaining. He felt strong. He slurped down the last bit and felt stronger.

‘So, are you coming home?’

‘That depends,’ she said defensively.

‘On what?’

‘On a number of things, but firstly on that man leaving my house.’

‘Well, Stella, in that case we might not see each other for a day or two because my plan is to allow him to stay until I can get him checked into a clinic.’

He slammed the phone down. He could feel a thin layer of cold sweat on his forehead and his eyes were stinging. What should he do next? Call Ralph? Call his sister? He looked down at his desk and saw his diary where Phyllis had written in the rescheduled appointment with Hafsatu at two. She’d put a big red ring around it: ‘
REMEMBER
.’ How could he forget?

He called Ralph on his mobile. It went to voicemail. He called his own home number, thinking Ralph might answer if he was still there. He heard his own voice asking callers to leave a message, and hung up. He suspected Ralph was still asleep.

He had half an hour before a meeting with the trust budget team. He used the time to sketch out a eulogy to Aunt Jessica. Simon had sent over some basic facts. Dates, places, jobs, associations. It was helpful enough and would certainly provide some padding. He scribbled out a structure:

He sat back, relieved he had at least got something down on paper. It wasn’t much but it would do for now. If he had not a single second more to think about it before the event he would be able to get by with that. Hopefully he would find a little more time to flesh it out and make it more personal. For the moment, he silently thanked Lance Corporal Spiers and the stimulant properties of Red Bull. With fifteen minutes before the trust budget meeting, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. The Red Bull had other ideas. He gave up trying after five minutes and asked Phyllis to get him a coffee. Then he called Jan to see if she could drive their mother to Somerset for the funeral. She couldn’t.

‘Oh Christ, Jan, that’s a real pain.’

‘Sorry, but I’ve got something on first thing I can’t get out of. I don’t suppose we can trust a cab to get her there?’

‘Think how that would make her feel! Plus it would cost a fortune.’

‘What about Stella?’

‘Not exactly on the best of terms at the moment.’

‘Oh, sorry. Jack?’

‘Ditto.’

‘What about Simon? If he’s asked you to do the eulogy, surely he could help out.’

‘He’ll have lots of other things to sort out. Don’t worry, I’ll do it. Just the last thing I need. I’m feeling a bit under the cosh at the moment.’

‘Yes, you sound it. Can’t you take some time off ?’

‘Got a refugee who was gang-raped coming in shortly, and I have a particularly difficult patient seeing me at home.’

‘Martin, there’s no point pushing yourself so far that you go over the edge.’

‘But I have patients, Jan. I can’t not see them, not help them.’

‘Mmm, maybe. But just remember, nobody ever died saying they wished they’d spent more time at the office.’

‘Thanks.’

Sturrock made next to no contribution to the budget meeting and left as soon as it was over, avoiding the small talk over sandwiches sent up by the canteen. Phyllis had put a cheese roll on his desk, but he couldn’t face it. He tried to sleep again, but his mind would not still. Ralph hadn’t called, and was still not answering his phone. He had another look at the outline of his eulogy to Aunt Jessica but failed to think of anything else he wanted to say about her. There was just five minutes now until Hafsatu arrived. He was back to feeling cellular tiredness, as if every particle in his body was crying out for rest. But he had to keep going. He wondered about getting more Red Bull, but decided against it. He suspected the current crash would merely herald something even bigger if he tried to lift himself again. Just one more patient, keep going, he told himself. Keep going.

32

The moment Emily woke up, she felt the need to go outside. It was only just light, and the Caledonian Road was surprisingly quiet. She’d never seen Sami’s shop in the morning. Surrounded by deliveries, he was frantically trying to sort newspapers and get the milk cartons into his fridge before the customers who stopped by his shop on their way to work started to arrive.

‘Do you want a hand?’ she asked.

Sami grinned. ‘So you’ve finally decided to take up my job offer then?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Emily, ‘but I thought I’d give it a try. Where do I start?’

‘Great. Well, you see this machine, do you know what it is? It’s the thing that puts the prices on the produce. And it’s all set to go for the cans of soup in the back. So you get going with those, and when you’re done, come back and I’ll show you how to change the price for the next thing.’

It took her a while to get used to pressing the button with just the right weight so the little ticket stuck on to the tin. Once she got the hang of it, she got through the first batch in five minutes.

As she went back into the store itself, her headscarf loose and her face clearly visible, a young man standing looking at the magazines caught sight of her and grimaced. Before he could stop his reaction from translating into sounds, the words ‘Christ alive’ came out followed by a return to the teeth-baring grimace.

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘You get used to it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s just that, you know …’

‘I know. You didn’t expect to see anything like that here. I understand.’

It was a wonderful moment. If anyone had said to her, just a few days ago, that by Monday morning she would be able to be in a public place, with her whole face exposed, and react as she had just done to a young man’s involuntary revulsion, she would have seen this as over-optimism on an Olympian scale. Her joy was matched by the young man’s embarrassment.

As he left, a copy of
Angling Times
under his arm, she went over to Sami and told him what had happened.

‘I just can’t explain it,’ she said. ‘It’s like I’ve discovered a new me and a new way of looking at the world.’

‘Perhaps you’ve found God?’ he said. Often, in their late-night chats, she and Sami had discussed his faith. He had told her how, when his wife died, he found the only place where he could feel any comfort was the mosque. Emily always listened politely but doubted that the Catholic Church would ever provide her with such solace. Now she was not so sure.

‘I don’t know whether it was some kind of spiritual awakening, but I think I know better what people mean when they say they’ve seen the light. I’m not sure how it’s happened but I feel so happy, Sami, and a lot of that is down to you.’

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘It is all down to you. It is what you are inside that has been trapped by the pain you felt. And now it is coming out. It makes you happy. It makes me happy. It makes everyone who knows you happy.’

She worked in the shop all morning and then went home to get some lunch. As soon as she got back to her flat, she sent an email to Professor Sturrock telling him what had happened and apologising for what she saw as unnecessary aggression towards him last week. She concluded by saying, ‘This weekend, I have experienced something that I can only describe as “spiritual”. I feel strange using that word, but I’m sure it’s the right one. When I lived through the fire, I felt I lost any faith I might have had, along with any real will to live. I couldn’t see how a world with a loving God in it would have allowed
this
to happen to me. It was a purely selfish thought, wasn’t it, and that thought was trapping me. That’s what you’ve been saying, I think. That’s what your raisins were all about. And in realising it, I feel happier and more liberated than I ever have. Is that not just mind-blowing? I think so.’

33

As Ralph Hall realised where he was, he wondered how he had managed to sleep on the tiny sofa in Professor Sturrock’s study. It couldn’t have been more than four feet long yet somehow he had slept through till late morning. He was feeling ill, and very sorry for himself. He threw up, but more briefly than most days of late, and he was able to down the litre of orange juice and a couple of bananas that Sturrock had left for him on the kitchen table without bringing them straight up again. He took a bath, shaved, brushed his teeth, then turned on the TV in the study. He realised to his dismay that it was already lunchtime. He was still the lead story on Sky News. Seeing himself on TV made him feel even worse. He switched it off and went back to the kitchen in search of more fruit juice. But then he spotted a bottle of wine. It spoke to him in a way that nothing else in the fridge did. It said temptation. It said prospect of pleasure.

He took the bottle from the fridge, placed it in the centre of the table, next to the fruit bowl, and sat staring at it. He didn’t feel an immediate need to reach out for it, which was a good sign, but he wanted to know if he could last at least half an hour, just staring at the bottle, and not opening it.

He had managed ten minutes, and was feeling a little better about himself, when he heard a key turning in the front door. He could sense that the presence it was bringing in was not a happy one. Barely a noise. Door open. Door closed. Light steps walking towards the kitchen.

It was Stella Sturrock.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Oh, hello.’ He saw her notice the wine on the table.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just doing a little test.’

‘Did you pass?’

‘So far, yes.’

‘That’s good. Can I get you a cup of tea?’

‘Thank you, please.’

He picked up the bottle of wine and took it back to the fridge.

‘I should apologise for yesterday,’ he said. ‘You probably noticed, I was a bit desperate.’

‘Yes, I could see that.’

‘Desperate.’

‘Have you spoken to your wife?’

‘No. I’m afraid I’m too much of a coward.’

‘You should, you know. Or go and see her.’

‘I don’t want to venture out, to be honest.’

‘I can imagine. Hard to get away from you out there. Still, I should think she’ll be worrying about you, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. If you like, I could give her a call. To tell her where you are, and to say that you’ll be calling later.’

‘That is really kind of you, but are you sure you want to get involved in this? I’ve brought enough chaos into your family already.’

‘No, I’d like to help,’ she said, sitting down at the table. ‘I think I owe you an apology too. I was not in a happy frame of mind yesterday. Far from it. Martin and I were getting on each other’s nerves. You probably noticed. But I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you. I should have shown a little more compassion.’

She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but she looked very different. He thought she was more attractive without make-up. The fierceness that had rather scared him when he arrived at the house had gone. There was a gentleness there today that reminded him of her husband.

‘I really don’t think anyone should apologise but me,’ he said. ‘I completely understand why you were angry.’

‘So long as you understand I wasn’t angry with you, so much as with Martin.’

He smiled, and she smiled back.

‘You’re not the only man and wife to go through the odd rocky patch,’ she said.

‘Indeed. You seem a very strong couple all the same. This feels like a strong couple’s house. Does that make sense or am I talking like a politician?’

‘I’m not sure you’d be saying it if you heard us yelling at each other earlier today.’

‘Not about me being here, I hope.’

‘Don’t worry. We both had a point. They just got lost in the noise and the baggage.’

The kettle had boiled.

‘Do you take milk and sugar?’

‘Milk please.’

‘Have you spoken to Martin?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘I imagine he will have been trying to call you.’

‘You’re right. I should have checked my mobile. I’ve been avoiding it.’ He was conscious of how much of an imposition his presence must be on them.